Джорджетт Хейер - A Blunt Instrument

"What were your movements on the night of the 17th, Mr. North?"

"Does it matter? I killed Fletcher. That's all you want to know, isn't it?"

"No!" panted Helen. "He's only saying it to save me! You can see for yourself he is! Don't listen to him!"

Hannasyde said: "It is by no means all I want to know, Mr. North. At what hour did you arrive at Greystones?" "I can't tell you. I didn't consult my watch."

"Will you tell me just what you did?"

"I walked up the path to the study, entered it, told Fletcher why I had come -'

"Why had you come, Mr. North?"

"That I do not propose to tell you. I then killed Fletcher."

"With what?"

"With the poker," said North.

"Indeed? Yet no finger-prints or bloodstains were discovered upon the poker."

"I wiped it, of course."

"And then?"

"Then I left the premises."

"How?"

"By the way I came."

"Did you see anyone in the garden, or the road?"

"No."

"What took you to Oxford yesterday?"

"A business conference."

"A business conference of which your secretary knew nothing?"

"Certainly. A very confidential conference."

"Did anyone besides yourself know that you were going to Oxford?"

"Both my partners."

"What proof can you give me that you actually were in Oxford last night?"

"What the devil has my visit to Oxford got to do with Fletcher's murder?" North demanded. "Of course I can bring proof! I dined at my college, if you must know, and spent the evening with my old tutor."

"When did you leave your tutor?"

"Just before midnight. Anything else you'd like to know?"

"Nothing else, thank you. I shall ask you presently to give me the name and address of your tutor, so that I can just check up on your story."

Helen got up jerkily. "You don't believe all he's told you! It isn't true! I swear it isn't!"

"No, I only believe that your husband was in Oxford yesterday evening, Mrs. North. But I think you had better not swear to anything more. You have already done your best to obstruct the course of justice, which is quite a serious offence, you know. As for you, Mr. North, I'm afraid your account of the murder of Fletcher doesn't fit the facts. If I am to believe that you killed him, I must also believe the story your wife told me at the police station on the day I first interviewed you both. Your wife did leave Greystones by way of the front drive just after ten o'clock, for she was seen. That means that you murdered F'letcher, cleaned the poker with such scrupulous care as to defy even the microscope, and reached the side gate all within the space of one minute. I sympathise with the motive that prompted you to concoct your fairy story, but I must request you to stop trying to hinder me."

"What, didn't he do it after all?" said Neville. "You don't mean to tell me we're right back at the beginning again? How inartistic! How tedious! I can't go on being interested; it's time we reached a thrilling climax."

"There's a catch in it somewhere, and I can't spot it,"

said Sally, frowning at Hannasyde. "What makes you so sure my brother-in-law's innocent?"

"The fact that he was not in London last night, Miss Drew."

Helen put out a wavering hand and grasped a chairback. "He didn't do it?" she said, as though she hardly understood. "Are you trying to trick me into saying something - something -'

"No," Hannasyde replied. "When Mr. North has told me just where he really was on the evening of the 17th I shall be satisfied that neither of you murdered Ernest Fletcher. You, at least, could never have done so."

She gave a queer little sigh, and crumpled up in a dead faint.

"Oh, damn you, Superintendent!" exclaimed Sally, and went quickly forward.

She was thrust somewhat unceremoniously out of the way. North went down on his knee, gathered Helen into his arms, and rose with her. "Open the door!" he ordered curtly. Over his shoulder he said: "I went to see a friend of mine on the evening of the 17th. You can verify that. Peter Mallard, 17 Crombie Street. Thanks, Sally: I shan't need your assistance."

The next instant he was gone, leaving his sister-in-law meekly to shut the door behind him.

Neville covered his eyes with his hand. "Drama in the home! Oh, my God, can you beat it? He thought she did it, and she thought he did it, in the best Lyceum tradition. And they performed their excruciating antics on empty stomachs!"

"Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me!" suddenly announced Glass. "They will deceive every one of his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies!"

"You know, I won't say that I don't appreciate Malachi," remarked Neville critically, "but you must admit that he has a paralysing effect on conversation."

Hannasyde said briefly: "You can wait in the hall, Glass."

"Rebellion," said Glass, is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is an iniquity and idolatry. Therefore I will depart as I am bidden."

Hannasyde refused to be drawn into any sort of retort, merely waiting in cold silence until Glass had left the room. Neville said: "I wish you'd brought the Sergeant. You don't understand how to play up to Malachi a bit."

"I have no wish to play up to him," replied Hannasyde. "Miss Drew, when your sister feels well enough to see me, I want to have a short talk with her."

"All right," said Sally, lighting another cigarette.

He looked at her. "I wonder if you would perhaps go and find out when I may see her?"

"Don't leave me, Sally, don't leave me!" begged Neville. "My hand must be held. Suspicion has veered in my direction. Oh, I do wish John had done it!"

"I'm not going," replied Sally. "For one thing, I wouldn't be so tactless; for another, this problem is just beginning to get interesting. You needn't mind me, Superintendent: carry on!"

"I know what's coming," said Neville. "Who were you with last night?"

"Precisely, Mr. Fletcher."

"But it's very awkward: you've no idea how awkward!" said Neville earnestly. "I can see that you're asking a very pregnant question, of course. But it would make things much easier for me if you'd tell me what the secret of last night is."

"Why?" said Hannasyde. "All I wish you to do is to tell me where you were yesterday evening. Either you know why I'm asking this, or you don't - in which case you can have no possible objection to answering the question."

"You know, that sounds very specious to me," said Neville. "I can see myself falling headlong into a trap. How terribly right Malachi always is! He warned me against deceit repeatedly."

"Am I to understand that you have been practising deceit?"

"Oh yes! I lied to my aunt," said Neville. "That's what makes it all so awkward. I told her I was coming here last night, to see Miss Drew. I can't but see that that is going to cast an extremely bilious hue over my whole story."

"You didn't come here, in fact?"

"No," said Neville unhappily.

"Where did you go?"

"I'd better tell the truth, hadn't I?" Neville asked Sally. "One is at such a disadvantage with the police: they always know more than they say. On the other hand, if I tell the truth now I may find it awfully hard to lie afterwards."

"Mr. Fletcher, this sort of thing no doubt amuses you, but it fails entirely to amuse me!" said Hannasyde.

"You must think I've got a perverted sense of humour!" said Neville. "I haven't; I'm not in the least abnormal: it's only other people's troubles that amuse me. I'm wriggling in the toils."

"I am still waiting for an answer to my question, Mr. Fletcher."

"If I had my way you'd wait for ever," said Neville frankly. "Oh God, why didn't I go to Oxford, and call on my tutor? He'd have been very glad to see me, too. You mightn't think it, but they all hoped for great things of me at Oxford. You know: Fellowships, and what-nots. I was thought to have an intellect."